Tag Archives: far right

Unaccustomed As I Am To Feeling Hopeful…

I am finally emerging from the black cloud I inhabited during the early days of this Presidential contest. There are a number of reasons–most of them centered on the enthusiasm generated by the Harris/Walz ticket and Trump’s ever-more-frequent mental meltdowns–but also grounded in my belief that most Americans are good people.

The emergence of Donald Trump didn’t really test that belief. (Well, okay, sort of…) After all, he’s lost the popular vote by millions every time he’s run; if it weren’t for the Electoral College, he would never have gotten close to the Oval Office. That said, millions of people did vote for him–and in the years since 2016, scholars and pundits have wrestled with the question: why? Why would anyone cast a vote for a childish ignorant buffoon clearly unfit for any responsible position?

I have previously shared my conclusion that the answer to that question is racism. Trump’s rhetoric (when it’s comprehensible) gives Americans permission to express hatreds they had hidden when the dominant culture still privileged civility and decency.

Speaking of decency…Watching the Democratic convention reminded me of that famous question posed to Joe McCarthy–“have you no decency, sir?” Speaker after speaker reminded us that America once prized–and mostly practiced–decency, and most people saw their fellow Americans (even the ones who didn’t look like them) as neighbors, not “others.”

After the 2016 election, a lot of Trump voters crawled out from under their rocks. (In Howell, Michigan last month, white supremacists rallied, chanting “We love Hitler. We love Trump.” Last week, Trump held a rally there.)

As the polls show Kamala Harris surging, those nativist haters are doing what such people do. They are “coming out” to where the rest of us can see them for what they are–indecent–and they’re turning on each other.

A recent article from the Washington Post was headlined:  “Far-right influencers turn against Trump campaign.”

Some of the internet’s most influential far-right figures are turning against former president Donald Trump’s campaign, threatening a digital “war” against the Republican candidate’s aides and allies that could complicate the party’s calls for unity in the final weeks of the presidential race.

Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and podcaster who dined with Trump at his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago in 2022, said on X that Trump’s campaign was “blowing it” by not positioning itself more to the right and was “headed for a catastrophic loss,” in a post that by Wednesday had been viewed 2.6 million times.

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist whom Trump last year called “very special,” said his “weak” surrogates had unraveled his momentum and that his approach “needs to change FAST because we can’t talk about a stolen election for another 4 years,” in an X post that was “liked” more than 8,000 times.

Obviously, any discord in the Trump campaign is good news. But more important, in my opinion, is the emergence of these “influencers” from under their rocks, because we can see them more clearly.

With millions of followers, the far-right provocateurs have long been one of the most reliable engines for winning Trump attention online, helping to build the viral energy that boosted his political career and his strong lead among predominantly White male voters.

These far-right activists want the campaign to adopt harder-right positions on race and immigration. They are especially frustrated by the campaign’s disavowal of Project 2025. Meanwhile, MAGA campaign workers recognize that Trump can’t win without expanding beyond his hard-Right hater base.

In an interview, Fuentes said he intends to push his followers to adopt “guerrilla” tactics and “escalate pressure in the real world,” including through mass appearances at Trump rallies in battleground states such as Michigan, until the campaign meets their demands to stop “pandering to independents.” He has urged followers to withhold their votes for Trump, saying it is the only way to awaken a campaign that has “no energy … [and] no enthusiasm.”

On the Harris/Walz trail, energy and enthusiasm are abundant.

I remain highly skeptical of poll numbers, but they do accurately reflect momentum–which way the wind is blowing. The major reason for my polling skepticism is also the reason for my current hopefulness: I don’t trust the polls’ “likely voter” screens.  In the wake of Dobbs and Biden’s withdrawal, we’ve seen registrations mushroom (one headline said by 700 percent!). Those previously “unlikely” voters aren’t going to the polls to support Donald Trump–they are responding to hope and the welcome decency of the Harris/Walz campaign.

It’s been disheartening to discover that millions of Americans respond positively to Trump’s racism and childish insults, but I stand by my belief that–depressingly numerous though they are–they are a minority.

If the majority votes, we’ll be okay.

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Let Me Count The Ways…

On Facebook, Trump apologists are posting angry rebuttals to complaints about the administration’s incompetent response to the Coronavirus pandemic. You can’t blame a president for a disease! This could have happened during any administration! Your criticism is just an example of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Etc.

(I like to think of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as an accurate description of the Dear Leader’s mental state, but I assume that isn’t what his base intends it to mean…)

Although it is absolutely true that no president can control the timing or severity of a pandemic, a paragraph in Dana Milbank’s column Thursday in the Washington Post actually, factually, described many of the ways in which the Deranged One has made this pandemic much worse for Americans than it should have been.

Milbank neglected to mention what was by far Trump’s worst decision; in his zeal to undo anything and everything his black predecessor had done, early in his administration Trump eliminated the team Obama had charged with preparing for pandemics–and he didn’t replace them, despite several warnings that such a pandemic was likely.

There was also no mention of Trump’s inexplicable–and unforgivable– refusal to accept test kits offered by WHO.

Milbank did remind readers that Trump has depleted the government of scientific expertise–something I’ve repeatedly blogged about.  He also noted that the President has done “little to heed warnings to prepare for a pandemic”– a needlessly gentle way of describing Trump’s hostility to people who know what they are talking about, and his absolute refusal to listen to anyone about anything, expert or not.

Milbank says that Trump blocked Congress from conducting meaningful oversight. That actually might be unfair; Trump is so inept when it comes to dealing with Congress, he could not have blocked oversight without the slavish assistance of Mitch McConnell (aka the most evil man in America) and the Congressional GOP. But Milbank is clearly correct about Trump’s repeated efforts to cut funding for public health and medical research, and about the way in which the chaos and constant turnover in the administration has eroded competence.

His reckless stimulus legislation during an economic boom and his badgering of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates left few fiscal and monetary tools to stop the ongoing economic panic. His constant stream of falsehoods misled the nation about the threat of the virus and contributed to a delayed, haphazard response. His administration badly misjudged the impact of the virus and was claiming until just a couple of weeks ago that it would require no additional government spending.

Milbank is also correct when he asserts that the bungled handling of the virus is exactly the sort of mismanagement that should disqualify Trump from reelection. But tell that to the bigots and crazies who support him.

The Guardian recently had an article looking at the reaction of Trump’s far right supporters–titled, appropriately, “Disinformation and Scapegoating.”

Apocalyptic narratives – whether of societal collapse, biblical rapture, or race war – are the central way that the a spectrum of far-right movements draw in followers and resources. These narratives use fear to draw followers closer, allowing leaders to direct their followers’ actions, and maybe fleece them blind.

The article details the responses of people and groups on the fringes of politics and sanity–Alex Jones, the survivalists, the televangelists hawking “sure cures,” and Trump’s biggest fans, the Neo-Nazis.

Farther out on the neo-Nazi right, in the Telegram channels where “accelerationists” – who seek to hasten the end of liberal democracy in order to build a white ethnostate – overlap with “ecofascists” – who propose genocidal solutions to ecological problems – groups are openly talking about how to use the crisis to recruit people to terroristic white supremacy.

And of course, the far-right is feverishly concocting conspiracy theories about the causes and origins of the virus–theories that scapegoat immigrants, minorities and liberals. (Alex Jones, for example, claims that Covid-19 is a human-made bioweapon, produced by the Chinese government to bring Trump down.)

Most Americans are responding to this unprecedented challenge with generosity and kindness–looking in on neighbors, buying gift certificates from closed restaurants to provide owners with some much-needed income, sharing credible information and comfort. Then there are are the Trump apologists–those simply refusing to hold him accountable for the government’s delayed and incompetent response, and those inventing theories that absolve him of responsibility while further endangering the rest of us.

Maybe it takes a pandemic to show us who we are.

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This Is Scary

Speaking of collusion…

CommonDreams recently reported on evidence of “explosive” and “extraordinary” coordination between a controversial Madrid campaign group and far-right parties across Europe.

A controversial Madrid-based campaign group, supported by American and Russian ultra-conservatives, is working across Europe to drive voters towards far-right parties in next month’s European Parliament elections and in Spain’s national elections this Sunday, openDemocracy can reveal today.

Our findings have caused alarm among lawmakers who fear that Trump-linked conservatives are working with European allies to import a controversial US-style ‘Super PAC’ model of political campaigning to Europe – opening the door to large amounts of ‘dark money’ flowing unchecked into elections and referenda.

The Madrid-based campaign group CitizenGo is best known for its online petitions against same-sex marriage, sex educationand abortion– and for driving buses across cities with slogans against LGBT rights and “feminazis”.

But now openDemocracy can reveal new evidence of “extraordinary coordination” between this group and far-right parties across Europe – from Spain to Italy, Germany and Hungary.

Former United States Senator Russ Feingold, who worked with John McCain to reform political finance in the U.S., described the report’s findings as “frightening” and called on European leaders to protect the democratic process.

“Europe has an opportunity to get ahead of this and not make the same mistakes that were made here in the United States.”

During the past few years, there has been explosive growth of far-right–essentially fascist–parties here in the U.S. and in Europe.  Spain is just one example:

The Spanish far-right party Vox has pledged to build walls around Spanish enclaves in North Africa, jail Catalan independence leaders, loosen gun control laws and “make Spain great again”. The party also opposes “political correctness”, marriage equality for gay people and laws against gender-based violence.

Sound familiar?

The cited article goes into considerable detail about the global links among far right groups and the sources of their financing, but what is truly chilling is the extent of this movement and the fears that motivate its supporters.

We’ve been here before. Change can be terrifying to those who believe that their positions are being threatened. And societies today–especially western, democratic societies–are facing enormous changes.

Technology is rapidly transforming economies, and automation is threatening millions of jobs. Previously marginalized populations–women, LGBTQ citizens, African-Americans, immigrants–are demanding an equal place at the civic table. Longstanding traditions are under assault from a variety of directions–from the arts, from globalization, from liberal religions, and from growing secularization.

People–okay, mostly straight white Christian males– fear the loss of their traditional dominance ; they experience these changes as existentially threatening. That isn’t new. What is new is the ability–courtesy of the Internet– to connect with others around the world who share their fears.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric coming from Trump and his white nationalist ilk gives them permission to be far more candid about their bigotries. (You might even say that the bigots are leaving their closets and “coming out.”)

White nationalism appeals to people who are fundamentally insecure–who believe, deep down, that they can’t compete in the world that is dawning, that shorn of their traditional privilege they will be insignificant.

The problem is, that fear is powerfully motivating.

People of good will who are willing–even eager– to live in our evolving world cannot afford complacency. There’s a quote by someone whose name I’ve long forgotten, to the effect that a rattlesnake, if cornered will become so angry it will bite itself. That, of course, is exactly what happens to these people who are consumed with hate and resentment against the Other — they are biting themselves.

But the rest of us are collateral damage.

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